Digital Media and Narrative in Video Games
Digital Games: A rapidly developing industry * Australian games industry has earned a reputation for quality in a vast worldwide market hungry for new content through successful and innovative games like Auran’s Dark Reign. * High growth rate in the worldwide games market means that there are many opportunities for the local industry to keep growing and developing. * To stay on top of the game in this notoriously fast-moving industry, local companies need to be lean, flexible and innovative. The changing nature of games means that local developers are facing some big challenges, but also some unique possibilities to move into new and exciting types of computer games. How Games Are Changing * Never has the real and the virtual been so interconnected: we can now jump online and play with other gamers around the world in real time or construct entire socials worlds through games like Sims. * The console game has also changed dramatically. Games, music and movies are starting to merge together, often under the umbrella of the big entertainment companies. On the other side of the fence, animated films are now beginning to be made entirely with the software engines that power games. Boundaries are blurring everywhere. * Then there are the new game possibilities emerging within developing forms of media such as interactive TV and wireless-connected hand-held devices. The Business of Games * Australians spent $825 million in 2002 on games software and hardware, and this figure is ramping up yearly. Where the Australian Industry Fits Most of the world’s commercial computer games are made by big international games publishers such as Electronic Arts, Sony and Vivendi Universal. Some Australian companies work with these publishers to produce games, while others are carving out their own independent niches. Australia’s games production companies produce $100 million worth of games a year according to the GDAA. Analysts say this figure is growing bigger every year. With these kinds of figures, Australian governments have realised there is a real opportunity to develop a large and thriving ‘high-tech’ sector. So lately they have been funding strategies to grow the local industry and grab a bigger share of the market. History of Game Development in Australia Australian companies have been developing games for a long time. Melbourne, for instance, has a 20-year history in computer game development, largely due to Beam Software, a company bought in 1999 by France’s Infogrames and now part of Atari. Another selling point is the cost of production: it’s cheap to make games in Australia in comparison to the USA and Europe. Future For the Local Industry * As the processing power of our computers increases and commercial publishers try to retain their place in an increasingly sophisticated marketplace, the average console game is becoming more and more complex - and that means expensive. * In 2001, Adam Lancman, Managing Director of Infogrames Melbourne House and President of the Game Developers Association of Australia, stated at a conference that typical console games budgets were already in the millions of dollars. * Lancman said the future for the Australian industry was looking bright because Australians are technically savvy, well connected to the web, and its developers are able to offer quality games to a content-hungry industry at comparatively good prices. Careers in the Industry * Local games industry hires more than just computer programmers. People working in the industry include animators, technical designers, writers, 3D specialists and project managers. * Skills in film development, 3D, writing, animation, documentation and character design are in demand, as well as ‘generic’ skills such as communication skills, teamwork, problem solving and lateral thinking. From The Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal website LINKS (back Digital Media and Video Games)